[27] Ed. 1784, vol. iv., p. 189.
The Society of Arts—Its Foundation—Its Removal to the Adelphi in 1774—James Barry and his Famous Paintings—Visited in John Street by Burke and Johnson—The Latter's opinion of his Genius—Description of his Pictures for the Society—The Work of the Society—"Spot" Ward, the Inventor of "Friar's Balsam"—Johnson speaks in the Great Room—Forsaken by his "Flowers of Oratory."
Inseparably connected with the romance of the Adelphi, and very interesting on its own account, is the history of the Society of Arts, with its memories, not only of painters, but of Johnson and other celebrities. The Society owes its origin to William Shipley (1714-1803), a drawing-master of Northampton, and brother of Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St Asaph, the friend of Benjamin Franklin. It was established at a meeting held on March 22, 1754, at Rawthmell's Coffee-house, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Its first president was Jacob, Lord Viscount Folkestone. Its complete designation is "The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce." Smollett, in his History of England (1757), says, somewhat grandiloquently: "The Society is so numerous, the contributions so considerable, the plan so judiciously laid, and executed with such discretion and spirit as to promise much more effectual and extensive advantage to the public than ever accrued from all the boasted academies of Christendom." The Society had various homes prior to settling in the Adelphi. Its first meetings were held over a circulating library in Crane's Court, Fleet Street. A move was made westward to Craig's Court, Charing Cross, and from there the Society went to the Strand, in rooms opposite the New Exchange, and, in 1759, to apartments in Beaufort Buildings, Savoy.
In 1771, the brothers Adam entered into an agreement with the Society for the erection of "a proper building in the Adelphi for the use of the Society and the accommodation of its officers." The first stone was laid by Lord Romney, on March 28, 1772, and the building was opened in 1774. The Great Room, in which are the six famous pictures painted by James Barry, R.A. (1741-1806), between the years 1777 and 1783, is 44 feet in width, 60 feet in depth, and 48 feet in height. The painting of these celebrated pictures is one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of art. In 1774, the Society of Arts suggested to certain members of the Royal Academy—then newly instituted—that they should paint the interior of the Great Room, and that they should be reimbursed by the public exhibition of the completed works. This proposition was rejected by the academicians, at whose head was Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Barry, as a member, refused the offer. Three years later, however, Barry, having but sixteen shillings in his pocket, applied for permission to execute the work, unaided, and without remuneration. The Society's housekeeper told Benjamin Haydon, the historical painter (1786-1846), that she remembered Barry at work on his frescoes. His violence, she said, was dreadful, his oaths were horrid, and his temper was like insanity. In summer, he started painting at five o'clock, worked until dark, and then etched by lamp-light until eleven at night. Burke and Johnson called once. But no artist dared to brave his wrath. He had his tea boiled in a quart pot, dined on porridge, and drank milk for supper. So poor was the painter that he applied, but in vain, to the Society for a little money, and "an insolent secretary even objected to his charge for colours and models." Subsequently, the Society relented and advanced the artist a hundred pounds. The Society "afterwards indulged him with two exhibitions of his paintings, in 1783 and 1784, which brought him £503, 12s., the Society paying the cost of the exhibitions, which amounted to £174." He was also "rewarded" by the Society with a gold medal. But he had other, and, perhaps, more pleasing recognitions of his talent. That sturdy traveller and philanthropist, Jonas Hanway (1712-1786), came to one of the exhibitions, and the pioneer of the umbrella was so pleased that he insisted upon leaving a guinea instead of the customary shilling. The Prince of Wales gave Barry sittings, and Lord Aldborough declared that the painter had "surpassed Raphael." Lord Romney gave him a hundred guineas for a copy of the heads, and Dr Johnson thought highly of Barry's imaginative powers. "Whatever the hand may have done," he said to Boswell, "the mind has done its part. There is a grasp of mind there which you find nowhere else." Poor, neglected, and half-mad, Barry died at the age of sixty-five. His body lay in state in the Great Room on March 7. He was buried in St Paul's.
Some sixty years ago, said a writer towards the middle of the last century, there might have been seen daily passing in a direction between Oxford Street and the Adelphi, for years together, and through all kinds of weather, one whose appearance told, to even the most casual observer, he looked upon a remarkable man. Referring to himself, in one of his letters to a friend, Barry had once said, "Though the body and the soul of a picture will discover themselves on the slightest glance, yet you know it could not be the same with such a pock-fretted, hard-featured little fellow as I am also"; but neither these personal characteristics, nor the mean garb in which he usually appeared, could conceal the earnestness stamped upon his grave, saturnine countenance, or the air of entire absorption in some mental pursuit, having little in common with the bustle of the everyday business of the world around him. He was a man to make or to keep few friends, and to shun all acquaintances; it was not often, therefore, that, in these passages to and fro, he had any companion; but the event was noticeable when he had, from the striking change in his demeanour. He became full of animation, and of a kind of sparkling cheerfulness; his conversation was at once frank, weighty, and elevating, and even the oaths, with which he made somewhat free, could not spoil the delight of the most fastidious censor of words, whilst borne along on the full and free current of the painter's thoughts. No one but himself at such times would have called his countenance "hard-featured"; its smile was inexpressibly sweet, its look of scorn or anger, when roused, such as few men could have met unmoved. But what was the employment that thus determined for so long a period his daily movements? The answer will require a brief review of his past career. Whilst a young student at Rome, Barry, annoyed by the absurd taunts of foreigners as to the ungenial character of the British soil for the growth of art, was often seduced into answering them in such a manner as suited rather his fiery temper and indomitable will than the cause which he so impatiently espoused. But a better result was his own quiet determination to devote his life to the disproof of the theory. He began admirably, by a strict analysis of his own powers, and by inquiring how they were best to be developed. Here is the result: "If I should chance to have genius, or anything else," he observes, in a letter to a friend, "it is so much the better; but my hopes are grounded upon an unwearied, intense application, of which I am not sparing. At present I have little to show that I value; my work is all underground digging and laying foundations, which, with God's assistance, I may hereafter find the use of. I every day centre more and more upon the art; I give myself totally to it; and except honour and conscience, am determined to renounce everything else." But the writer was without a shilling in the world to call his own; and although he had friends, the best of friends, as they were—one of them at least, Burke, the best of men—he had already received from them the entire means of subsistence while he had been studying so long at Rome, and was determined, therefore, to be no longer a burden to them or to others; but how should he, renouncing all ordinary blandishments of a young painter's career, the "face-painting" and other methods by which genius condescends to become fashionable, or, in other words, to lay down its immortality for the pleasure of being acknowledged immortal—how was he to subsist? It was whilst this question remained, we may suppose, not decisively answered, that the painter thus wrote to another friend:—"O, I could be happy, in my going home, to find some corner where I could sit down in the middle of my studies, books, and casts after the antique, to paint this work and others, where I might have models of nature, when necessary, bread and soup, and a coat to cover me! I should care not what became of my work when it was done; but I reflect with horror upon such a fellow as I am, and with such a kind of art in London, with house-rent to pay, duns to follow me, and employers to look for. Had I studied art in a manner more accommodated to the nation, there would be no dread of this." But from this state of despondency and dissatisfaction he was soon to rise triumphant. Again and again he asked himself how he was to subsist while the great things he meditated should be accomplished, and the answer came: the conclusion was anything but attractive or cheering, but he saw it was the conclusion: no cross, no crown; and he accepted it ungrudgingly. It was not long before he could say, "I have taken great pains to fashion myself to this kind of Quixotism; to this end I have contracted and simplified my cravings and wants, and brought them into a very narrow compass." There are few, we think, of those who may have smiled with pity or contempt at the painter's mean garb, who would not have honoured it while they reverenced him, had they known this. The first apparent opportunity of achieving the object indicated was in connection with the proposed decoration of St Paul's.[28] But this fell through, and it was not until the Society of Arts accepted his offer that he was able to bring himself into line with his own convictions.
